At the Lord’s Table

by Editor · July 22, 2015

The question of how to provide pastoral care to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics will form a focal and contentious part in the Synod of Bishops on the Family in October.

“The Eucharist is our essential spiritual nourishment. Many Catholics who are excluded from the Lord�s Table hunger for that nourishment.”

Briefly put, some bishops are proposing that such Catholics may be admitted to the sacraments, especially Holy Communion, under certain circumstances and with the dispensation of the local bishop.

This model, which is commonly identified with German Cardinal Walter Kasper, is a response to those who argue that the situation of many faithful servants of the Church requires a merciful pastoral response which, at the same time, does not diminish the Church�s teachings on divorce.

This solution would regulate a situation where innocent parties in a divorce are either excluded from the Lord�s Table, or access it discreetly in parishes where their circumstances are not known.

Critics of the model counter that admitting Catholics who, in the Church�s definition, live in situations of adultery would undermine the Church�s teachings on divorce and admit to the sacraments people who live in what the Church teaches to be a sinful state.

Both positions, and others, will be presented vigorously at the Synod of Bishops. What happens once they have been presented causes much confusion.

For one thing, there will be no winner at the end of the synod, and no immediate new laws. The synod�s bishops will make their recommendation to the pope, who in turn will exercise his prerogative to interpret their advice and arrive at a conclusion which may or may not reflect the majority sentiment.

These conclusions are usually published in due course in an apostolic exhortation, which is not a legislative document but reflects the thinking of a pope. A change to current discipline, policy or pastoral approach might require a decree of some sort which the pope may issue at any point.

Whatever view prevails in the synod, it must be understood that no proposition suggests that the Church�s teaching on divorce (based on Mk 10:9; Mt 19:6) should change. It will remain in place.

Nor does it mean that, should the Kasper position become a norm in the Church, every divorced and civilly remarried Catholic will be automatically granted access to the Eucharist.

It would mean that such Catholics could ask the local bishop to be granted a dispensation by which they receive access to the sacraments without having first obtained an annulment.

Presumably the bishop would ascertain that the applicant was an innocent party in a divorce (for example, he or she was abandoned by their spouse, or the spouse was adulterous, or was physically or emotionally abusive). The bishop should not give a dispensation to applicants whose divorce was not predicated on grave reasons.

This approach speaks to paragraph 2386 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in the section which addresses the Church�s prohibition on divorce: �It can happen that one of the spouses is the innocent victim of a divorce decreed by civil law; this spouse therefore has not contravened the moral law. There is a considerable difference between a spouse who has sincerely tried to be faithful to the sacrament of marriage and is unjustly abandoned, and one who through his own grave fault destroys a canonically valid marriage.�

Such divorcees may receive Communion, unless they enter into a civil marriage.

Opponents of the Kasper position argue that the process of annulment addresses these concerns.

The annulment process is carried out by a diocesan tribunal which determines whether a marriage was entered into validly. Its recommendation is then sent to the Vatican whose Roman Rota decides whether to issue an annulment of marriage.

Catholics who have obtained an annulment are free to marry again or, if they have already done so civilly, to have their marriage solemnised by the Church.

Pope Francis has called for the annulment process to be made easier and free. Nonetheless, many people find the process complicated, drawn-out and humiliating.

The Eucharist is our essential spiritual nourishment. Many Catholics who are excluded from the Lord�s Table hunger for that nourishment.

The synod will need to find ways to reconcile the imperatives of the law with those of Christ�s mercy.